NUFORC Sighting 175917

Occurred: 2023-05-29 17:30 Local
Reported: 2023-05-29 14:53 Pacific
Duration: At least five minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Tyrone, GA, USA
Location details: Backyard on winfair drive looking west.

Shape: Light
Explanation: Balloon - Possible
Characteristics: Lights on object

Bright light slowly drifting southwest

Very bright light -- brain initially went to Venus. Knew it was not a weather balloon cause I work for the NWS and those are non-reflective...and launched right at 23Z, which is not when the sighting occurred (2130Z). Object was drifting at high altitude towards the northwest. Observed it for a few minutes, noted that it was definitely *not* a plane (we are 20 miles southwest of KATL). Attempted to view it using my 8" aperture telescope. I caught onto it briefly and all I could get was a rather small but very bright dot. It then drifted behind some cumulus clouds. Some very thin high cirrus was present. The object's brightness rose and fell a few times, but it wasn't always clear if it was a change in reflection angle or high cirrus obscuring the object.

My wife was outside with me...she also saw it. My 8 year old son came out, saw that I had the telescope, briefly tried to see it, but couldn't get sight of it.

Her guess was some kind of drone. My guess was cynically another one of those "Chinese Spy Balloons" like I saw on the news a few months ago, but who really knows. I'm mostly filing this report to figure out if anyone else saw that cause I'm just really curious what I was just looking at.

Posted 2023-07-10